Catharine Edwards

Orator gives us a Cicero for our times, not a detached observer but an active participant and ultimate casualty of the convulsions that brought down the Roman Republic. Catharine Edwards has crafted an intimate and deeply informed portrait of a man struggling to make sense of his world’s slide into civil war and chaos… Compelling and beautifully written

Eve MacDonald, author of Carthage: A New History of an Ancient Empire

It is a very tall order to make readable sense both of the brutal politics of late-republican Rome and of the complex inconsistencies of Cicero’s own character – but Catharine Edwards has carried it off superbly. Written with grace, pace and scrupulous annotation, Orator is an exemplary historical biography

Peter Wiseman, Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Exeter

The Life of Cicero and the End of the Roman Republic

'Orator gives us a Cicero for our times... Compelling and beautifully written' 
Eve MacDonald, author of Carthage 
 
'Superb... an exemplary historical biography' 
Peter Wiseman, Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Exeter 
 
When the Roman statesman Cicero was murdered in 43 BCE, his head was cut off and his tongue pierced with pins – a final, brutal act of revenge against a man whose words had shaped a generation and made him many enemies. Rising from provincial obscurity to the highest elected office in Rome, Cicero became the greatest orator of his age, a figure who believed that speech itself could defend a republic. 
 
Yet Cicero was far more than a master of rhetoric. His long and turbulent life unfolded alongside the collapse of the Roman Republic, and often at its very centre. He moved among Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great, crushed a conspiracy that threatened the foundations of Rome and cast himself as the republic’s last hope. His writings on politics, philosophy and society would prove enormously influential, while his uneasy response to the rise of autocratic power continues to provoke admiration and debate. 
 
In this gripping new biography, the distinguished classicist Catharine Edwards brings Cicero vividly to life, revealing both the brilliance and the contradictions of a man caught between principle and ambition. At a moment when democratic institutions feel fragile, and the power of persuasion is once again under scrutiny, Cicero’s life speaks to us with renewed urgency.

Catharine Edwards

Praise for Orator

Orator gives us a Cicero for our times, not a detached observer but an active participant and ultimate casualty of the convulsions that brought down the Roman Republic. Catharine Edwards has crafted

It is a very tall order to make readable sense both of the brutal politics of late-republican Rome and of the complex inconsistencies of Cicero’s own character – but Catharine Edwards has carried it off superbly< ...

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